Padres, Templeton Lose Big : Baseball: The Padres lost, 5-3, to Mike Scott and the Houston Astros and Garry Templeton lost his starting job at shortstop to Roberto Alomar.

Garry Templeton felt a sharp pain, as if someone stabbed him in the gut Monday afternoon, as the words tumbled out of Padre Manager Jack McKeon’s mouth.

McKeon kept talking, but Templeton didn’t hear a thing, fighting to regain his senses. Everything suddenly had become a blur. His entire 14-year career began flashing through his mind:

He thought about his days with the St. Louis Cardinals . . . his two All-Star appearances . . . the three years he batted over .300 . . . the day he got traded to the Padres . . . the 1984 National League playoffs . . . the 1984 World Series . . .

And he thought about this moment.

Damn, he had always told himself that this wouldn’t happen to him. He told himself that he wouldn’t be caught off-guard like all of the others he had seen during the years. He’d be different. He’d prepared for the day.

But when he was summoned out of the trainers’ room into McKeon’s office at 4:15, he had no idea that this would be The Day.

Templeton, 34, the Padres’ shortstop for the past 8 1/2 years, was being told that he will be replaced in the starting lineup by Roberto Alomar.

Not just for Monday’s game. Not just for a temporary basis. But more than likely, for the remainder of the season.

And so there it was Monday, with the Houston Astros beating the Padres, 5-3, in front of 11,674 at the Astrodome, the new double-play combination of Alomar and second baseman Bip Roberts was unveiled.

It ends Templeton’s era of being the Padre starting shortstop. And on Monday, after playing 1,865 games in his career, and making 58 starts this season, Templeton watched his first game knowing that he is a backup player.

“They pay me to do a job,” Templeton said, “they don’t pay me to run the club. The man is looking for a winning combination. He’s looking for a guy to play shortstop for the future.

“I knew it was bound to happen. I just didn’t think it would happen this soon with as well as I was playing (batting .264 with five homers and 28 RBIs).

“I guess the man wants to find out whether Robbie can play shortstop sooner or later, so now was the time to find out.”

It wasn’t easy for Templeton to watch Monday, but then again, Alomar and Roberts can readily attest that it wasn’t so much fun trying to play new positions either, particularly for Roberts who made a critical error on a double-play ball in the third inning that resulted in two runs.

Padre starter Andy Benes (6-5), who has made six consecutive starts in which the Padres had won, struggled in the early-going by yielding a run in the second, and ran into big problems in the third. He yielded a single to Eric Yielding, and proceeded to walk Rafael Ramirez and Craig Biggio.

The bases loaded, Benes got Franklin Stubbs to hit a sharp grounder to second base. An easy double-play ball, Roberts said. He took a couple of steps to field it, bent over, and promptly booted it. Everyone was safe, with Yelding running across the plate. Benes induced two fly balls after the error, but each were deep enough to score runs, and the Padres never were able to recover from the 4-0 deficit.

“I just kind of blacked out, out there,” Roberts said. “I didn’t know where I was out there. I wasn’t asking for the world, I just tried to play my game, but it wasn’t good enough.

“As you see, the error really hurt us. It cost us the game.”

The defeat left the Padres (34-33) a whopping 10 games behind the first-place Cincinnati Reds, providing the Reds with their largest lead of the season in the National League West.

The deficit is largely why McKeon has decided to make the drastic adjustment, knowing that they’re not going anywhere this way, and will have to find a shortstop in the future, anyway.

“I’ve got to look down the line,” McKeon said. “It’s not like we’re a half-game up, or a half-game down. We’re 10 games out.

“We have to face reality.”

McKeon said he tried as long as he could without making a change. It wasn’t so much that Templeton’s range has diminished, McKeon said, as it was that he had no one he could trust to fill the job when Templeton had a day off. McKeon never felt comfortable with Roberts or Joey Cora at shortstop, and was forced to start Templeton in 58 of the Padres’ first 66 games.

“I’ve really been pushing Tempy,” McKeon said, “and it hasn’t been fair to him. He’s slowed down, but I’ve kept playing the hell out of him.

“I explained the situation to him the best I could. I told him this could be short-term. This could be long-term. But if everything goes right, it could be forever.

“He understood. He took it the way I thought he would. I remember talking to him about this when we tried to get (Cubs’ shortstop Shawon) Dunston. He said he’d do anything he could to help the kid (Alomar).”

The risk of moving Alomar, of course, is that you’re taking one of the best second baseman in the game, despite his league-leading 11 errors, and moving him into a position that he played just one year--1987 in double-A Wichita--since he was 15 years old. And although Roberts was brought up as a second baseman, playing it during the entire 1986 season, he has played second only 97 games in his career.

“It’s still baseball, I don’t think it will be that hard for me to do,” said Alomar, who did not have a single fielding chance Monday. “I played shortstop growing up, and once you played it, you don’t forget. The only reason I moved to second was because I wanted to be like my dad (Padre third-base coach Sandy Alomar). He was my idol, and I wanted to be just like him.”

Said Sandy Alomar: “I think he’ll do good there. He can handle it. Everything is how people want to accept it. It’s kind of ironic, when I came up, I was a shortstop. Then they moved me to second.”

It’s still possible, of course, that Templeton--who has made 14 errors, including eight errors in the past month--could regain his starting position. Yet, if everything goes accordingly, the move will be permanent.

McKeon said that he probably will platoon Fred Lynn and Shawn Abner in left field. And if they don’t cut it, he said he might call up Thomas Howard from the Padres’ triple-A Las Vegas club. But for now, the infield alignment will stay put.

“For the first 10 minutes after I was done talking to the man, Templeton said, “I was kind of down thinking about it. But after 15 years in this game, you learn to accept things. I’m not going to sit here and say I like it, but I have no big ego. I’m not going to be uptight about it.

“What are you going to do? When the man speaks, you listen.

“And I learned that a long, long time ago.”

Padre Notes

The most encouraging news for the Padres Monday was the performance of Eric Show, who has been in exile the past month. Show, who has not pitched since June 17, allowed just one hit in three innings. “It was nice to make a contribution after screwing up so badly this season,” Show said. “It’s the best I’ve thrown all season. It’s been rough this year. You feel like a millstone instead of a piece of the puzzle. It’s like man vs. the world. But you know, I’ve never worried about my confidence. I can’t even explain this mystical confidence I have because it’s almost super-natural.” . . . Roberto Alomar on his two mental lapses in the past week when he forgot how many outs there in an inning: “I have no excuses. I have to wake up. Now, more than ever, I can’t make stupid mistakes like that.” . . . Padre center fielder Joe Carter’s troubles continue. He is in a one-for-21 slump, and is batting just .172 (21 for 122) since his last at-bat May 21. . . . Astro starter Mike Scott (5-7), the winner of Monday’s game, is 14-1 against the Padres at the Astrodome in 17 starts. . . . Padre catcher Mark Parent broke a zero-for-14 slump with his sixth inning homer off Scott. Of Parent’s 14 career home runs, 10 have been hit at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, three at the Astrodome and one at Wrigley Field in Chicago. . . . The Astros stole four bases Monday off Parent, who has thrown out just one of 14 baserunners this season. . . . Bruce Hurst, who lasted just 1 1/3 innings Sunday in the Padres’ 11-10, 12-inning defeat to Atlanta, will start two days ahead of schedule Wednesday against the Astros. Mike Dunne, who threw 76 pitches Sunday in relief, has been pushed back to Friday against the Chicago Cubs at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. . . . The Padres are considering changing their uniform colors and design, but have not yet decided whether they can come up with a new design by July 1, the National League’s deadline. . . . Padre bullpen stopper Craig Lefferts, who was given the night off Monday, has pitched more innings, 11 2/3, since June 15 than Bruce Hurst and Dennis Rasmussen (7 1/3) combined. . . . The Padres are going to be bring in Home Run Derby July 28 for the Equitable Old-Timers Game at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.